Amemeber: All In One Solution For All Your Online Selling

I have seen many plugins that cost from a range of $95 to $800 that are used for creating membership sites, or some sort of sites that allow accepting payments.

Every other software script is built to solve any one particular problem. That is good, if someone has only one problem to solve and has a lot of money to spend!

But what if you want to create a membership site and also sell your ebook on the same site. And you have multiple income streems and you don’t want to depend on a third party website service to accept payment for you and then send it to your paypal a/c.

Amember is the solution. It doesn’t cost you a whole lot,.. its a great script which costs ( ~~$199.95~~ ) $179.95 – for single domain license. You will also get a license key for installing this script on your local machine(local host — wamp, mamp, xamp ).

There are various plugin’s which support integration of amember with WordPress, vBulletine, phpList etc. Below is a complete list.

aMember Pro ($179.95 for lifetime license with 6 months of free updates)
WordPress plugin (Free lifetime subscription)
“One-Time download” plugin ($30.00 for 6 months)
4Images plugin ($40.00 for 6 months)
@Mail integration ($60.00 for 6 months)
CopperMine plugin ($40.00 for 6 months)
Dokeos plugin ($40.00 for lifetime subscription)
DruPal plugin ($40.00 for 6 months)
Expression Engine plugin ($40.00 for 6 months)
FusionBB ($40.00 for lifetime subscription)
I-Rater plugin ($40.00 for 6 months)
Incremental content plugin ($60.00 for lifetime subscription)
Invision Board Plugin ($40.00 for 6 months)
Joomla plugin ($40.00 for 6 months)
ListMail plugin ($40.00 for 6 months)
MamboServer plugin ($40.00 for 6 months)
OpenRealty plugin ($70.00 for 6 months)
OsCommerce ($40.00 for lifetime subscription)
PerlDesk plugin ($20.00 for lifetime subscription)
Phorum plugin ($40.00 for lifetime subscription)
PhotoPost integration ($40.00 for 6 months)
SMF plugin ($40.00 for 6 months)
Serendipity plugin ($40.00 for lifetime subscription)
Vanilla Integration ($40.00 for lifetime subscription)
WowBB plugin ($40.00 for 6 months)
XOOPS plugin ($40.00 for 6 months)
e107 CMS plugin ($40.00 for 6 months)
phpBB3 plugin ($40.00 for 6 months)
phpFox plugin ($40.00 for lifetime subscription)
phpList Integration ($40.00 for lifetime subscription)
phpNuke Plugin ($40.00 for 6 months) details
phpWebSite plugin ($40.00 for lifetime subscription)
punBB plugin ($40.00 for 6 months)
vBulletin3 plugin ($40.00 for 6 months)
Facebook integration gate (new)

Some of these plugin’s cost $30 or $40 and the license in for lifetime. But WordPress integration plugin is free and its licensing is also for lifetime.

If you ever decide to sell something online make sure you check out amember, you will surly love it and save a lot of money in the long run of your business. See it as a good investment.

I wanted to explained how to install the script, but I advice you not to try this yourself. If you run into problem it will be difficult to analyse the root cause for the problem and solving it may take a lot of your valuable time. The good news is, you need not spend in hiring a professional to install it for you. In fact, once you purchase amember software you will get a one time free installation service.

Some of the things to know:
1. Security: Amember is a secure software for accepting money online. But I still recommend not to use this to accept credit card payments if you are on a shared hosting. If you are serious about your business then go for a dedicated server.
2. Troubleshooting: When you run into trouble with your script, contact amember support team directly. I had a minor issuse with my php.ini and Alex from amember sorted out the problem very quickly. And with all those email exchanges I had with the staff, I feel that their support staff is technically very strong.

Amember For Membership Sites:
Recently I setup a membership site for one of my clients and used amember and wordpress alone to create a very good, simple to navigate and maintain membership site.

You can run membership sites with recurring payments and also sites where you have multiple levels of memberships like: Silver, Gold, Platinum membership etc.

Basically I had installed WordPress two times. One in the root and the other in a directory called members. The root WordPress is like anyother WordPress powered blog. Its intended to be a public blog. Another WordPress installation was protected using amember and the access was allowed only to registered members. Its so simple and easy with amember.

Affiliate System To Boost Your Sales/Bussiness:
Amember also has a built-in affiliate system, which doesn’t seem to be as powerful as the dedicated affiliate system software out there. But it does its main job properly, that is, tracking the incoming affiliate traffic, setting the cookie and assigning the commission. What I would love to see is a graphical stats(pie chart, bar chart in the stats for visual representation) and some option to convert any link on the website into a affiliate code.
For example, people should be allowed to link to news letter page instead of sales letter page using their affiliate code. There are manual ways to do that of course, but a automated tool would help.
What I like the most about amember affiliate system is, we can assign affiliate code automatically to everyone who is signed up as a member(we can enable or disable this option easily in the admin area).

On the administrator side of affiliate system, it does a lot of great job. It has option to set first month affiliate payment percentage and percentage for rest of the month etc – we can even set subsequent months payment to null. This model is very helpful where members pay monthly fees and affiliate get commission for each of the payment their referrals make in the subsequent months.

Members area of amember:
In members area, members will have the option to manage their news letter subscription, there is a news letter archieve page, and affiliate statistics(that is the number of clicks, conversion etc).

With all these nice experience with amember, at one place I was stuck-up and felt like a stupid myself! That is, when I forgot my admin panel password and there was no way to recover it 🙁
I think amember purposefully have not included a option for password recovery for admin panel(other members who have signed up for your service have option for password recovery. Its only in the login page of admin panel that doesn’t have a password recovery option.)

That’s just a lesson for rest of you, don’t forget your admin panel password – you will be in trouble!

Things I like about amember:
1. Costs less.
2. It has a super easy DB backup system.
3. Integrates with a lot of open source scripts.
4. Has a lot of payment options. Including the popular PayPal.
5. Sophisticated mailing system(You can integrate it with aweber using plugin. But it works just fine even without aweber.)
6. Simple affiliate system.
7. Free installation(very important!)
8. Report import/export option.
9. DB repair option.
10. Recurring billing.
11. Good Support.
12. Active forum.
13. Good Documentation about all the features and options.
14. Members area user interface is very simple, easy to understand and get use to.
15. 30 days free trial.(very important)

What I don’t like and want to be improved:
1. Not so pleasing user interface in admin side.
2. Would like to have visual representation of stats in affiliate system.

Server Requirement:
PHP 4.3.0 or later
MySQL 3.22 or later
Unix/Linux hosting

Before you purchase any membership software or any other software for selling your products, go ahead and download the free trial of amember and try it. Remember, you get a 30 days free trial of amember.

Update: Alex informed me that, there is a nice tool to recover admin password. Here is the link aMember CP login/password.
It can be reset using this tool: FixAdmin

Target Advertising – What We Can Learn?

Target advertising has become a major success in web advertising industry. We see this in action every day on most of the websites.
Google has implemented this into their adwords system so the ads may seem more and more relevant and according to the user interest.

Example Ad:
Orkut has a lot of users from India and it collects various user data like internet speed, demographics etc — get a clue from their advertise page This is used effectively for advertising.

Video: Airtel Broadband ad on Orkut — Target Advertising

Airtel broadband ads are more targeted to low bandwidth users and these ads show the ease of uploading photos to Orkut using their high speed internet connection.

Take away message:
1. We can learn how to advertise our content, product, service effectively.
2. We should sell at a place where we have our potential customers.
3. The ad copy must convey the message properly.
4. Showing the result in action.
Ex: Showing how your product has helped someone reach their goal or improve their business or life.

Interview with Dan Schawbel, The Master of Personal Branding

Dan Schawbel is a leading voice in the area of personal branding, and he is the author of Me 2.0 as well as the publisher of both the award winning Personal Branding Blog and Personal Branding Magazine.

I recommend Me 2.0 to anyone who wants to know and buildup their personal branding. I especially encourage students to pick a copy of the book, it will surely be valuable tool for your future.

Interview:

Satish: Tell our readers about the idea of “Personal Branding”, and why one should care?

Dan: Personal branding is about uncovering what makes you special and then letting the world know about it. You should care because there is no job security anymore and because if you’re aren’t know for anything, then you won’t receive the same opportunities as others.

Satish: People helping us( evangelists ) brand ourselves start expecting the same help from us, while they don’t live upto the trust of their audience. How to deal with such situations?

Dan: You shouldn’t listen to people who aren’t proven experts in their field. Do some research on them first before asking for their help or trusting their content. There is an unlimited amount of people in the world, but only a select few that are trustworthy.

Satish: Some College students prefer to keep low profile, so that they do not get embraced when things go wrong. Your tips for students to fight their weakness?

Dan: You should always capitalize on your strengths and neutralize your weaknesses. The internet is now the global talent pool. If you aren’t active on it, then you have a lot of challenges in moving up in your career.

Satish: Your tips for students and employees to fight stage fear. Because we have observed that many people don’t get the confidence to face people and confidently tell about themselves. What would you suggest them?

Dan: I would recommend that students and employees really understand their subject matter before speaking in front of an audience. You can gain a lot of confidence when you’re an expert that will make you less nervous when in front of people. You should also get consensus among your audience before you speak, so that they are on the same page before you present. This makes it easier to get your message across.

Satish: How much important do you think the role of “Branding” in the success of a business/blog/service.

Branding is important for differentiating yourself from the competition, for recruiting new employees, for supporting your promotional program, and to charge a premium price.

Satish: With all the efforts to earn the Trust(for the sake of trust), when our blog readers/customers give bad personal
comments, how does it feel about the trust that we have built? And how to deal with such situations?

Dan: Trust takes years to build and you can’t force people to trust you. The higher quality of content you produce will attract more people and cause them to trust you.

Satish: Your effective tips for building personal branding.

Dan: You should understand how you want to be branded, then reserve your domain name and your vanity URL on the top social networks, and then invest time each day to connect with new people in your industry. You need your own personal mission statement, core values, and a unique design.

Satish: What have you learnt with the release of your book “Me 2.0”

Dan: I learned that if you promote other others and their books before yours come’s out, many will support the launch of your book. The lesson learned is that by helping others first, they will reciprocate.

Satish: What do you think are – some of the signs of Entrepreneurship.

Dan: If you are a control freak, have creative ideas and are very ambitious, then you’re an entrepreneur. Typically, if one of your family members is an entrepreneur, you have the gene!

Satish: Your Advice for job seekers(students who have just finished their college life and are applying for a job).

Dan: They should be networking every single day, both online and offline. They should also be specific with the type of career they want so they can target certain companies and positions. Use your current network too, including your family and friends, to make introductions to people that are employed.

Satish: Your advice to college students to fight the stress of studies, assignments, exams, seminars, projects and their little voice of “entrepreneurship”

Dan: You have to work hard no matter what the task is. If you’re an entrepreneur, then start a business in college. Don’t purposely flunk out!

Satish: If you have anything else to tell your fans/followers/readers, you can tell them.

Dan: I just launched my 3D corporate website for Millennial Branding, LLC. I also have a new blog called Student Branding Blog if you want to check that out.

We appreciate Dan for taking time to participate in the interview. Hope you all enjoyed it. You may also like to read my review of the book Me 2.0

WordPress 3.0 is Out – Do Not Expect WordPress 3.1 Shortly!

WordPress 3.0 has been released and you can find it in your dashboard.

Some of the interesting new things in WordPress 3.0:

1. The most interesting thing for theme developers is, it has a new default theme called Twenty Ten.

2. Theme developers have new APIs that allow them to easily implement custom backgrounds, headers, shortlinks, menus (no more file editing).

3. Facility to merge MU and WordPress.

And some other bug fixes.

Watch this video:

https://videopress.com/v/wp-content/plugins/video/flvplayer.swf?ver=1.21

Want to wait till WordPress 3.1 is released? Think again or read below:
This time WordPress team will be concentrating on things around WordPress.org, like showcase, Codex, forums, profiles, update and compatibility APIs, theme directory, plugin directory, mailing lists, core plugins, wordcamp.org etc. So WordPress 3.1 may not be coming any time soon.

We have upgraded to WordPress 3.0 and I already love the lighter interface.

Update:
There is a Maintenance mode, which gets activated while you are doing any upgrades. See screenshot below.
wordpress3-maintence-mode

And if the automatic update fails, it shows a message at the top of your dashboard..
autoupdate-fail-wordpress3

HostGator New Discount Coupon: Valid For Any Hosting Plan

As always we try to bring discount coupons / offers / coupon code / promo code for valuable products and services.

Use “TECHNOTIP01” (without quotes) to get $9.94 off of any hosting package that you purchase from HostGator. And use “TECHNOTIP25” coupon to get 25% off on any package.

What I like the most about HostGator?

24×7 Live Chat with support team/Billing department.

Quick response to support tickets.

Their “Hatchling Plan” costs $4.95 per month.

And with “baby plan” which costs $7.95(if purchased for 3 years) you can host UNLIMITED Domains and have UNLIMITED databases– This is the number one reason for me to prefer HostGator.

Update: You will also get $100 Free Google Advertising Coupon / Adwords /Google Search Marketing Coupon code along with the hosting. After signing up for the hosting, visit your cpanel and claim your $100 Adwords coupon(There is a link at the top left sidebar to claim your coupon).

If you have hosting needs, then its a good idea to give HostGator a try. You have nothing to lose, after-all your first month bill can be exempted by using the coupon code “TECHNOTIP01” and “TECHNOTIP25” (without quotes), if you like it – you can continue or else there are many other hosting companies.

HostGator

1. Get 25% Off All New Hosting Packages With HostGator! – 25% discount on New Hosting Plans; Promo code: 25MODEL

2. Only One Penny For Your First Month Of Hosting With HostGator! – $9.94 discount on One Month Hatchling Plan; Promo code: ONECENT

3. Up to 60% off + $4.99 on select domains at HostGator.com! – 60% discount on any store item; Promo code: SPRING2017

OnlineProfits.com – is now FREE to Join. Yes Free!

So isn’t it a good deal? You get a good quality hosting account and excellent free training program. OnlineProfits.com is by far the most complete Internet Marketing and Online Business training program on the web. So do not miss this opportunity.

Yes, you read it right. Daniel Scocco run OnlinePofits.com is now a Free training program.

So what’s the catch?
There is just one requirement: people will need to signup for a hosting account with one of their partners in order to get free membership. The partner hosting companies are Hostgator and Hostnine and the hosting costs $8 Per Month. You are supposed to keep the hosting account active for atleast 3 months inorder to get lifetime access to the membership program.
daniel-onlineprofits

Also there is one more exciting change: Now there is a “Live Case Study” area, where you’ll be able to watch Daniel build a profitable website from scratch. This way you can learn and implement the strategies that Daniel implements to his websites.

What about old members who paid for the course?
Old members will keep their account for lifetime and they will be benefited as there will be more lessons, audio, videos added soon.

Mark On Your Calendar:
OnlineProfits.com will open its door on June 8th. And I am sure, you don’t want to miss it this time!

Now you can go and grab:
1. News Letter.
2. Free Report.
3. And read an excellent article – “How To Make Money Fast On The Internet: 4 Methods That Really Work!” (Go read this excellent article, you will surly love it – and probably make some money after reading it.)